Goals and Results
I came to the Krug to meet some online friends that I had been talking to for years, and put faces to names. Almost as soon as it was announced, I saw that a large contingent of players from the greater Texas meta was going to attend, along with a lot of others. Which would of course be the case with a 110 person tournament.
I wasn't sure if ITS17 would come out with the Krug. The initial expectation was that this would be the first tournament of the new season, but that was the plan from Corvus Belli when it was first announced. I've always got a hope that the ITS packet will change notably with a new season since, despite some recent changes with Direct Action missions and tweaks to Last Launch and B-Pong, the mission set has been largely the same since N4 came out.
When deciding to attend the tournament, and especially when arriving, the goal was to go 3-2 at minimum and better if possible. I hadn't practiced the missions for this in advance, and a couple of them (B-Pong and Supremacy) are missions that I haven't spent much time with in N5. But time is scarce at times, and I could live with that in order to have two full days playing Infinity.
In those regards, it was a rousing success for me. I got to meet some great people and had a fantastic time. Every opponent was a pleasure, and that was a theme that I heard from everyone I talked to at the tournament, as well as being mentioned by the tournament organizers at the end of the event.
It's always nice when the judges don't need to do much work at an event. It's hard enough to organize something at this scale.
The climate control of the hotel struggled to keep up with the heat generated by this many people moving around, but there was plenty of water available and long breaks between rounds to step outside and catch a breeze or otherwise just reset between rounds. It was really well done and I'll absolutely attend again.
Personal Performance
Man, did I make some dumb mistakes. Losing on B-Pong that way was the result of bloodthirst and pool planning on my part, combined with some excellent play by Hackknee. And a theme of dumb mistakes ran through the tournament. We always have things to take away, and this is no exception.
First and foremost, I'll say that I thought my application of long-range firepower was good. And my deployment was decent. Or so I think, because it was never punished. But I could very much be mistaken there and am open to comments or interpretation as to how to get better. It's difficult to get a sense for how your deployment is when you go first on each of five rounds.
But I clearly have a weakness as a player when it comes to zone control missions. I just don't trust that durable elements in the army are durable enough to hold, so I prefer to kill my opponent until I feel more secure. While that's somewhat fine in B-Pong and I probably could've pulled out a win regardless (although not 10-0, but that's a tall ask), this problem came to the fore in Supremacy.
I couldn't decide if I was playing the mission or killing and, as a result, ended up doing neither. Which was pretty catastrophic and, again, my opponent capitalized and played his cards well to punish me for it. It's difficult to defend in Infinity in general, and Svalarheima isn't great at it for a variety of reasons. But I also think that I didn't build my lists sufficiently well to defend when looking at this mission lineup, and that was clearly a mistake on my part.
I've got bad habits to fix as a player in that regard, and work to do on my lists. I'm not sure if I'll change my infantry list much as a result. It at least has a TR bot, Locust, Beasthunter, etc that can take and hold ground if needed with marker states or high ARO burst to defend themselves. But when it comes to playstyle, I can absolutely do better. Need to do better. Leave Liang Kai prone on rooftops, leave the Beasthunter in marker, etc.
The Jotum list needs work. Flash pulses are great, but not really enough, and I haven't quite decided how to rework that list yet. Some elements will stay and some will not, but it needs bulk outside of just the Jotum if it's going to be a defensive list. That bulk might be in markers that are resistant to removal, heavy infantry, or something else. I'm not sure what.
But, especially looking at my fourth round versus Morats, he really didn't have any tools in his list that could deal with a Jotum well. Even if it got bricked. And it's a massive amount of points sitting in a zone that I was just reluctant to pull out of the bag because I didn't trust its defenses. And I'm not sure why. Lack of play time with it, since I'm not a big Jotum fan, perhaps? Or lack of confidence that it could push out the required damage to defend itself, or... I'm not sure. It needs changing, anyhow.
List Performance
Infantry List (Overall)
The infantry heavy list that I ran for three of the five games performed admirably. It's a list that I'm deeply familiar with after playing many games with it, and I'm pretty familiar with when to use each of the constituent components when needed.
As usual, the standouts were the Karhus, Liang Kai, and Beasthunter. They're easy units to use, with strong role specialization and an array of useful kit. Vertical mobility and active turn damage output are Sval's strongest selling points, and these units represent it well. The Karhus killed virtually everything they shot at with ease. Liang Kai is a nice piece that's both disposable and threatening, able to go on a killing spree or trade himself to remove mines or a key piece with equal aplomb. And the Beasthunter is the first thing I activate in my Group Two in order to clear obstacles or threaten enemy shooters that might be dangerous for my Karhus to engage. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but a +1B Heavy Flamethrower with N5 Super Jump rules and a marker state is difficult not to love.
The Locust didn't do very much this tournament. Lacking a strong hackable component on my opponent's part and a strong setup of either DTWs or MSV meant that the Locust was a bit more limited than other tools, and I often had other priorities for where to spend the orders. But the Locust did basically everything asked of it, narrow though that ask was.
I have more thoughts on the Vargar, expanded below.
Jotum List (Overall)
I liked the performance of the Jotum list in the games where I ran it, but think I'm going to adjust the list anyway. The core of the problem for me is that the Jotum is an incredible TAG, but I've placed it inside an aggression-based shell. And I already have one of those.
Despite the hacking power of Morats, I would've liked to run a Jotum list there. Or, well, a more defensive list, and I really like what the infantry based list does. Which leaves the thought of making the Jotum list more defensive.
And this probably means a total retooling of the list. I included Liang Kai, the Beasthunter, and a Varg link with Shona in this list, but that doesn't leave a lot of flex around the Jotum. It's basically the same list as the one running full infantry, but with a Jotum substituted for the Karhu duo and a weaker defensive package around it.
Which is clearly a mistake. I already have an aggressive list, and having a list to reach for when the mission calls for taking and holding ground is an essential requirement that I just haven't met. I love Shona, but I think the Vargar themselves have to go. There really wasn't ever a point where I found myself wanting to spend orders on them except to advance Shona somewhere except where I wanted a specialist in Provisioning, and even then it was an awkward mixture of two roles.
As much as I love the Vargar in theory in this list, spending those points on a minelaying Peacemaker and a TR bot is probably better to get some bulk in the list. Whether to keep Shona or Liang Kai is a more challenging question that I'll probably have to decide upon as I go through proving out the lists, but dropping one of the two will also let me scrape together enough points for Uma, Gunnar, a second Peacemaker, or similar.
I don't want too many S4 models to try to hide in the midfield, so a second Peacemaker may not be the thing. But this list is built in such a way where the Jotum will happily spend every order available to it if shooting needs to be done, and supporting it with appropriate tools for defense feels more of a priority than further offensive tools that are rarely used.
Vargar
The Vargar get a special section here, because they're a universal tool in both of my lists. And an expensive one that didn't see much use.
The Vargar are something I need to get better at using. I played PanO for so long with no vision control that I often don't think to use Discoballs when I should, and both the first game (approaching the Griffin) and the last game (blocking the Taquel) were good opportunities to do so. But I instead reached for the Jotum and spent orders on things that weren't the objective. It worked out in one case, and did not work out in the other, but it was a self-inflicted injury.
Similarly, I probably could've used Discoballs in Supremacy versus Morats and just delivered Shona straight to the Yaogat and Kornak while leaving the Vargar back in a more defensive position. This wouldn't have resulted in the Daturazi being killed but, had Shona done her job successfully, I could've watched the Daturazi's position with my Karhu duo with no risk from an enemy gun other than the lone surviving Kaitok shooting a Flammenspeer on B1 9s versus B1+1 13s.
It was probably the right play, but I didn't make it, and instead squandered a critical turn accomplishing exactly nothing with a mostly full Group One order pool. And I can't help but feel that this led directly to my loss, because trying to recover that position on T3 was basically impossible.
Future Adjustments
Obviously I need to tool around with other Jotum lists. I've got a few ideas kicking around, but nothing firm in my mind. I'm not a huge fan of taking EVO support just to throw a firewall on the TAG, or of taking a solitary Fusilier hacker for the same. Both expose easy kills for enemy KHDs to Trinity, and the list is otherwise not vulnerable to hacking.
But two Peacemakers feels like a bridge too far. And two TR bots does as well. There's a flex spot available for Uma Sorenson (camo), who I need to spend more time with in N5. Or for a Locust, Gunnar, or a few other choices. I'm not sure I love any of them, but a Locust is the most likely just to have something that can really use the Peacemaker's repeater.
I'm torn and not sure, but will be trialing a few lists until something feels like it clicks.